An objection is raised against the assertion that pra/n/a denotes Brahman. The word pra/n/a, it is said, does not denote the highest Brahman, because the speaker designates himself. The speaker, who is a certain powerful god called Indra, at first says, in order to reveal himself to Pratardana, 'Know me only,' and later on, 'I am pra/n/a, the intelligent Self.' How, it is asked, can the pra/n/a, which this latter passage, expressive of personality as it is, represents as the Self of the speaker, be Brahman to which, as we know from Scripture, the attribute of being a speaker cannot be ascribed; compare, for instance, B/ri/. Up. III, 8, 8, 'It is without speech, without mind.' Further on, also, the speaker, i.e. Indra, glorifies himself by enumerating a number of attributes, all of which depend on personal existence and can in no way belong to Brahman, 'I slew the three-headed son of Tvash/tri/; I delivered the Arunmukhas, the devotees, to the wolves,' and so on. Indra may be called pra/n/a on account of his strength. Scripture says, 'Strength indeed is pra/n/a,' and Indra is known as the god of strength; and of any deed of strength people say, 'It is Indra's work.' The personal Self of a deity may, moreover, be called an intelligent Self; for the gods, people say, possess unobstructed knowledge. It thus being a settled matter that some passages convey information about the personal Self of some deity, the other passages also--as, for instance, the one about what is most beneficial for man--must be interpreted as well as they may with reference to the same deity. Hence pra/n/a does not denote Brahman. This objection we refute by the remark that in that chapter there are found a multitude of references to the interior Self. For the passage, 'As long as pra/n/a dwells in this body so long surely there is life,' declares that that pra/n/a only which is the intelligent interior Self--and not some particular outward deity--has power to bestow and to take back life. And where the text speaks of the eminence of the pra/n/as as founded on the existence of the pra/n/a, it shows that that pra/n/a is meant which has reference to the Self and is the abode of the sense-organs.[129]